Marigold – A LitRPG

The next day the soldiers had gone out to level up, I had gained a lot of XP from that, so much so that I reached level 7, another thing was that the place got very busy with the arrival of the 40 soldiers, there were always groups of soldiers flying around everywhere without stopping and making sure there were no problems, yesterday we had a problem with a big flying beetle that seemed to want a free sweet meal, and I can say that he just... ended up paying the price, soon as he started flying towards kitchen the soldiers ran up to him and stung him mercilessly, the big beetle proved to be very resistant and powerful, and almost killed some soldiers, but soon Trouble arrived and gave him a single punch that broke all his armor and made him faint, the soldiers showed no mercy and followed him to the ground to kill him, which earned me a good 20 XP points.

Because of Trouble's show of force event, several other soldiers who were very young were impressed by him and entered the "fight club", to me it now seemed obvious that with the evolution of Trouble, the soldiers began to separate into groups, like the "knights" who adhered to Hans's safe and conserving methods, and the "fighters" who were savage and blood-hungry like Trouble, if we weren't bees who worked together blindly I would be seriously worried about a conflict between the groups , but everyone seemed to respect each other and work together, the 'knights' were more ethical, while the "fighters" were more radical, but they were all still brothers who fought for the same cause.

Another thing that happened was that Matt was very close to evolving, how do I know? He told me, apparently we can feel when the time is coming, like a tingling in the body.

Matt had gained all his XP by polonizing flowers, so if the actions you take to gain XP influence his evolution list, it is very likely that Matt will gain Collection / Production classes.

This world seemed to influence individuals to fight, of course there were [Traits], maybe even [Skills] to gain Xp without fighting, but these methods of gaining Xp were infinitely inferior to killing enemies, Trouble was much younger than Matt and yet he could evolve first, just because he's a soldier. And there's still the problem with the other workers, like Steve, Ken and Levi. They did "management" work and the System didn't grant Xp for that, so if they wanted to evolve they would have to go fight or dedicate themselves to polonization? This was very unfair!

Ken for example is clearly a doctor/nurse, now if he started dedicating all his time to polonization to gain Xp, would he end up gaining Collection/Production options to evolve instead of a support class?

There's a way of sharing XP without needing to join fights, I was sure of that, I was a living proof for that, I didn't do anything and still got the XP, but it seems to be a one-way street, I can get the XP from them, but I can't send the XP to them.

Now I was waiting for the new [Bards] to born, I was seriously curious about their uses, and how they could help a hive, what would they do? Are they just the "celebrities" of the colony, or can they really help?

While I waited for some time I looked around, we still didn't have a building dedicated solely to the nursery, but this one was already very good, it had about 3 floors, and all the walls had breeding units, some time ago the Workers came up with the "horizontal brood comb" design, which Ken initially refused, but nowadays he really liked them, the famous hypocrisy, these horizontal brood combs were built pined to the walls, so when the food was poured into the pot it accumulated at the bottom, the larvae then ate it all calmly, and then simply wove a cocoon when they was ready. The disadvantage of these rearing units was that it could be a little difficult to pour food into them, but the 'nurses' simply flew in front of the units, put their heads inside the pot and spit out the larvae's food.

After waiting for a while, the 10 bard cocoons began to open, and from inside bees that looked a lot like ordinary workers came out, these bees looked like the workers when you looked at them for the firts glance, but if you paid more attention on them you would see that they are totally different.

These guys had bigger antennae, shinier and longer wings, a hairier and chubbier body, with 4 arms, 2 of which were bow-shaped, like the arms of a praying mantis, and they all had little golden dots on them, and big white manes.

"Hello? How are you all? Welcome to the world boys! I'm your mommy!"

"Hello Mom! It's an honor to meet you in person!" Said one of the bards

"I'm enchanted by your stunning beauty!" Said the oldest bard

"How can we help you, dear mother?" Spoke a bard who gently cleaned himself

'Bunch of ass kissers, they are definitely soft spoken, they seem like scammers or simply toy boys.'

'What the hell?! These guys are weak as hell, but the skills, what the fuck is [The Concert]? I've never seen a skill like this, and apparently even music has powers in this strange world, I can accept the small bonuses they can grant with [Harmonious Hymn] and [Hive Gift], but this [The Concert] is revolting!'

The music produced by this skill could cause a lot of crazy effects, I can see the uses for those musics and effects, like {The fury of many} which should be something to use as a last resort if we were being attacked, this way we could fortify all troops much as possible regardless of the [Classes] so they could fight in a desesperate situation, but causing the [Incapacitated] effect in the end, is really bad, if everyone fainted after the music who would take care of those who fell?!

The song {The Tragedy} is another mysterious one, it seems to be a song to "escape" quickly, this could really be useful, a group of bees could use it to escape to our house.

Another absurd thing about this skill was its description, "Everyone who listens to your music", does this mean that if someone didn't want this effect, but still ended up listening to the music, this would mean that they would still be doomed to suffer from the effect?! This is so broken!

And lastly what the fuck is {Last melody}, it seems like a good thing to be able to heal your allies and leave them just with the exhausted effect, but sacrificing yourself in the process is a big shoot in the foot! Can a single bard bee influence a large group of bees? Or does it take a large group of bees [Bard] to influence a large group of bees?

"Boys... Please explain your skills to me, I can't understand them..."

"Of course, dear mother!" Spoke pompously a bard

"We can use skills like [Harmonious Hymn] to grant passive bonuses to the entire colony, increasing the overall quality of life for everyone!" 

"We can also "bless" a drone with [Hive Gift], each of us can grant a small bonus that is stackable! So I would say all 10 of us could bless a single bee and grant it a large bonus!" Completed another bard

"Yes! But the bonus only works for a few hours, and we can only bless one unit at a time." Confirmed a bard while clapping his hands

"That's right! There's also the fact that even though [Hive Gift]'s effects are stackable, it has a limit! If there were 100 bards, we couldn't all bless a single unit!" 

"Um hum, another thing is that with the [Musicalization] skill we can create songs that grant bonuses for a specific class, each of us can generate a small bonus, but when we combine our songs we can generate big bonuses!"

"That's right! And the skill [The concert] must be used in a group! Just one of us is not enough to apply the effect to the entire colony, and another thing is that we can only influence those who are at an equal or lower level to ours!" Said the oldest bard

"True! Another thing is that if the music is interrupted before the effect is applied, we would take the Debuff, but we would not get the bonus!"

"Yes! That's true!"

"This skill is dangerous, we shoudn't use it carelessly!"

'Fuck? I didn't think these guys could really give me such a detailed explanation, the cooks said that their skills come with a "manual" but that seemed like something exclusive to my children, I never got any manual for my skills, I had to look at my self to learn how to use my skills.

But about these Bards... What a broken class... Are they weak piss? For sure! But these Skills made them worth it, they are very effective supports, they have several limitations apparently, like needing high numbers to be able to influence the entire colony, but we are bees, I can always create dozens of them. So that's not a problem for me.

Do humans also have classes like bards? What does being a human bard mean? Are human bards stronger? Because they must be able to influence groups alone with their skills, unlike these guys who needed to walk in groups.

"Boys, thank you very much for the explanation, if you are hungry there is plenty of food in the cafeteria, but first I would like to bother you and ask you to play me some music!"

"It won't be of any bother mother!"

"Only the best for someone so divine!"

The bards soon arranged themselves in a group in front of the nursery and began to talk, then they positioned themselves and began to play a small melody.

The bards vibrated their bee-like backs to produce a soft, gentle rattle, vibrated their wings for clear, beautiful sounds, and used their oddly shaped arms as instruments, they could reproduce sounds similar to a cricket, only infinitely softer and softer. melodious, and a sound that clearly resembled a violin.

Soon everyone around stopped for a moment to enjoy the music and I could feel as if all my worries were disappearing, I no longer felt anxious or sad, I just felt... Happy, happy and grateful.

Happy to have a comfortable home, happy to have children who love me, happy for how hardworking each of my children was.

Grateful to be alive, Grateful to be loved, truly loved, and grateful to be able to hear this beautiful melody.

When the bards finished they all clapped before returning to work, the bards thanked the audience before turning to me and awaiting my orders.

"T-That was beautiful boys, I never thought I would hear a song like that..."

"Thank you so much mom! We put a lot of effort into this, we're so glad you liked it!"

"Yes! We focused on relieving your stress, because we know you're a worrier! We're glad we could help!"

"Thank you very much boys, you can go do your work, but please... Never use [the orchestra], only use it as a last resort."

"Of course mom! No problem"

"I should give you all a name, but I can't think of so many names..."

"We don't care about that mom!"

"No! I insist!"

10 musical bees... 10 cute bee boys who are a kind of boy band.... can I call them collectively? Like a band, like BTS?

I think I'll just call them 1010 (Ten Ten), I remember playing a game that had a band with that name, so I think it will work out...

"What do you think of 10 10? It's not an individual name for each of you... But it's a name for the entire group."

"It's Perfect Mom!"

"It's Maginific like you!"

Soon as we finished everything, the boys went out to have a snack and I stayed behind in the nursery with dozens of bees waiting for me to fill each breeding unit that was here.

With the renovations that were carried out, the nursery now had around 100 new empty units, of which around 90 were available, it was a lot of eggs, but I had already gotten used to the task, now the question was what to produce.

"Produce more soldiers, military power is the key!"

"No! We need more workers! Levi said the construction crew is very stretched right now! He needs manpower."

"Are you stupid or simply ignorant? Of course cooks are the correct answer! Without cooks we would all starve!"

"You're stupid! What's the point of a bunch of cooks without collectors to get raw materials?!"

"I-I'd like some more bards, they look so cool..."

"We're talking about utility here Khey! Not entertainment!"

"S-Sorry..."

"Can't we just produce a little bit of everything guys? We don't need to fight about it, especially in front of mom."

Ken is infecting the nurses, they are becoming as sour and mean as him, some would say they have "attitude", but they just seem mean to me, if Ken was a human in my world he would definitely be a Miranda Bayle in real life.

"Calm down boys, let's produce workers ok? Levi really needs a lot of help, and we're fine on the food front for now."

"Hmmm.."

"Yeah!"

"If you say so mom!"

Soon as I decided what I was going to produce, I was guided to a part of the nursery that was simply... Incredible. The workers had made a super comfortable divan with leaf pillows and soft wax bedding, the whole place had several plates full of food specifically made for me, and jars of the most delicious honey from the hive, I could just relax while eating some sweets and drinking honey through a straw, the nurses gave me a massage and fed me in my mouth, which made me feel like a real empress.

After a while on that couch, I had already laid around 30 eggs and continued to produce them without stopping, the nurses lined up, tooked an egg in each arm and then went to a breeding unit to put the eggs into a single unit, and after that, they went back to the end of the line to repeat the process.

'Ahh... What a good life, I think Cleopath must have lived like that, well, she shouldn't have to lay eggs for sure, but other than that we are very similar.'

At the end of the process I was relaxed and when I laid the last egg I received another level notification

'Oh shit, these options are problematic.'

Baeon

Hello everyone, I had a few days off, and now I'm speeding up some chapters, I admit that the development is much slower than I initially expected, but I prefer to leave things well explained and 'constructed' before starting to give big time skips. So bear with me, I can tell you guys that until around chapter 40-44 we won't have any major time skips.